South Africa to Ethiopia - Questions about everything
 

Greetings all,

I am a newbie to this site, firstly thanks to all who donate their time to share with everyone, really amazing. So, the wife and I are planning on doing a ride from South Africa to Ethiopia over about 4 months. I have a million questions but I will focus on two if i may;

First, I originally planned on purchasing a new bike in SA and then riding that all the way up and then shipping it back to SA or perhaps even to Australia where I am currently living. Then I thought about carnet's and perhaps it would be better to buy here in OZ and then ship it over so that at least I would have the carnet's all sorted out etc. Now I am enquiring about pricing to ship so perhaps that might be the decider. Does anyone have advise on that one at all?

Secondly, if I did buy in SA would it then be difficult and time consuming to get a carnet arranged from there given that I would be applying for it in Europe? Can I sell it in ethiopia or do I need to get it shipped back to SA where I purchased it from/

Thanks for any and all help on this one

Best regards

Maestro

Looking for same info
 

Hello Maestro,

I'm sorry to have no answers for you ; I am merely replying to let you know that I am interested in exactly the same questions. I'll try and remember to update this thread with any info I obtain on the topic.

Surely you know about Rene Cormier's world tour? In case not, here's a nice HUBB post of his regarding carnet info for South/East African countries :

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FYI: Visa and border info for Canadians. South Africa to East Africa route - The HUBB
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...anadians-32288
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Good luck,
Jean-Philippe Valois
Montreal, Canada

I don't think I can help your decision, but I can offer a little information:

You will be able to buy a Bike in South Africa, but re-sale value will not be a lot. You will also be able to get a carnet from the South African AA. (Google them for contact details) which you can organise from Australia or Europe. It takes about 2 weeks. So you can also ship your bike to Africa on that Carnet.

If you sell it in Ethiopia, you'll have to pay the import duty into the country. If you ship an SA bike to Australia, you'll have to pay import duty there.

As a rule, anything that is imported into South Africa is more expensive here than anywhere else in the world, so I think you may find that buying a bike in South Africa would be more expensive than buying one in Australia. You can have a look at Auto Trader SA - New Cars, Used Cars for sale online, Car Finance, Car Insurance & Car Prices for prices of used bikes.

Personally I think you'd be better off shipping your trusty and tested bike over, doing your trip and shipping it back. This way you can have it kitted out, do some test trips for a weekend or two and have confidence in your machine, your gear and your ability before setting off on the big trip. You'll probably find that your shipping cost will be very very little in proportion to the cost of the rest of the trip.

I'm in Addis now - arrived today four months after leaving Cape Town. To buy the bike in CT you need to go to the city government building in the heerengracht and get an overseas permit - takes an hour or so. No one will sell you a vehicle without it. Buy your bike(s) and you go to the AA office on dirty Strand Street away to get your carnet.

They're idiots so contact head office in Jo'berg if they give you problems over your tourist visa and the carnet. (They're still not very enlightened as the RAC will give a carnet to a S.A. registered vehicle believe it or not)

You pay a R500 deposit and R1800 for a 12 page carnet which will be in Cape Town within 2 days for collection. 12 pages is more than enough.

On S.A. plates everywhere a carnet is not required until Malawi Nam/Zam/Bot/Zim (but not free - search a thread I contributed to in Trip planning paperwork)

Then malawi - tanzania - rwanda - uganda - kenya - ethiopia accept carnets.

However, people we met on the road on S.A. plates don;t have one and are currently in Tanzania without problems.

It's worth getting a police clearance form for the vehicle before you leave S.A. readily available from any police station - it avoids a dodgy cop leaving zim touching you for a bribe.

Why not arrange a deal to ship the bikes back to S.A. and sell 'em there? There are guaranteed buy back sales firm for cars - don't know about bikes.

Buying a bike in ZA
 

You can easily buy a secondhand bike in South Africa without the relevant papers. You will just need to put it on your name/register within a few weeks grace period.
Another good website to check is Classifieds – Gumtree Cape Town Free Classified Ads – Gumtree Cape Town Online Community they have a load of bikes of all sorts at decent prices.

Good luck and enjoy!

A friend of mine was just up in Tanzania with SA plates no problem at all.:thumbup1:

Adventure bikes you also find on www.600.xt.ms - WEB.DE MyPage

To register a bike is easy in RSA you just need your foreign passport and an address in RSA and go to the licence office.:D